Most of my tunes are housed on an external usb2 portable iomega mobile drive. So now, at least when on shuffle I click next, either on the iTunes controls, or my logitech wireless usb keyboard, or double-click a song on the playlist, there is a very distinct pause, before it starts the next/chosen song. At least a second, highly, highly annoying.

This pause/lag wasn't there before and this is the 13" unibody MacBook I got in June we're talking here so shouldn't really be about machine. No problem off of the internal HDD though. This is crap.

Yep, because this is not random and is very much related to iTunes 9.0, because it didn't exist with 8.0. Or well, I could normally skip through 3-4 songs off the external HDD before a similar short pause, and I just always figured it was a normal buffer issue of the USB bus and its drivers. Besides, it was shorter than what I'm putting up with right now.

It could also have something to do with the following things:(1) the Iomega Prestige Portable drive (2)is attached to two ports of the hub in my HP LP2475W display, and (3)the hub also has the logitech cordless desktop for mac receiver hooked to it, and the hub itself is attached to the other one of the MacBook's two USB ports. The other one has my old LaCie Porsche now used for Time Machine backups. However, that should be irrelevant in this equation, while the only key factor would be iTunes 9.0 itself, as I've had it setup like this, and sometimes hooked up things like a USB scanner, point&shoot digicam, even my Razr on the monitor's usb hub while playing iTunes all summer long with no problems.

Well, it could be also have something to do with Leopard and iTunes, and Snow Leopard upgrade might resolve this. I'm still waiting for Apple Up-To-Date to resolve it, as I bought my computer from an authorized retailer, so I had to go through the print and mail hoop and loop crapola for some reason.

Secondly, I'm estimating there are plenty of Mac users, especially those with a laptop, who keep their music collection on an external drive, which in many cases probably happens to be a USB one. So, this probably affects a whole lot of users.

Thirdly, if the Windows 7 version is affected with the same behaviour plus one degree down south, meaning it is happening with the internal HDD as well, this was something they forgot to test and after a few user complaints, they should release a patch.

I cannot stress enough how freaking annoying that pause/lag all of a sudden is. Especially when you are doing something or actually working while you're listening and you press that skip button on your keyboard when the next song starts and you don't feel like listening that one but want the next one that the shuffle is playing. So, normally this move integrates seamlessly with my workflow, or just flow when I'm not actually working, and my eyes are reading the screen, left hand rests on the keyboard (iTunes-specific) skip button, while my right hand operates the mouse and ears do the sound registering bit so I know what song is on the iTunes plate, until I get to the next song I like. Now all of a sudden there's this annoying and irritating pause between every skip messing the s**t up of your flow. That's BS. And if you're browsing through the playlist looking for a certain song and then you double-click that it's the same thing as already described.

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